progress of this enterprise for many days and found it most interesting.

At the spot selected, the river was about a hundred and twenty feet wide and five feet deep in the middle. The current was not very swift and a lot of mud had settled on the gravelly bottom. Saplings and bushy alders, many of them fifteen to twenty feet long, were used for a foundation. They were always placed with the butt ends up stream and stones on the bushy ends held them firmly anchored on the bottom. All sorts of materials were worked into this dam; much of it was carried, dragged or floated long distances. The sticks and brush were interwoven in a very ingenious manner, the chinks were filled with sod, stones and mud. The entire structure was firmly braced by heavy sticks resting against the lower slope of the dam with one end of each stick stuck in the ground at the bottom of the river.

This dam at first was built up to two feet above the normal level of the river and water flowed over the top of the dam; but the river banks were low at this place and water also flowed over the banks — on one side into a slough and on the other side into a swamp.

The second phase of this hydro-engineering feat was now begun. It consisted of wing dams two feet high on top of the river bank and parallel to the stream. These were carried up on the north side of the river a distance of three hundred and fifty feet and on the south side about two hundred feet. The dam across the river was also made two feet higher. The dam now, in the middle of the river, was five feet high under water and four feet above the surface, making it nine feet in the highest part and with the two wings, six hundred and seventy feet long.

We had visited the scene of operations at least twice every day during the building and had casually discussed the probable difficulty in reaching the old trail up the river, but had not considered the matter seriously. One day Bige and I dragged our boat up over the dam and rowed up the river. Above the end of the wing dam the forest was flooded five hundred or more feet on each side of the river, and if we wished to follow the old trail we should have to wade through water at least as far as that; for it was impossible to push the boat through the woods, between the trees and bushes.

It was all very well and very interesting to watch the operations of the beaver, but this was carrying a joke too far. The beavers were now interfering with our business. The beavers are, of course, protected by law, but here were hundreds of fine spruce, hemlock, pine and balsam trees being drowned in our presence. The trees would die; they were valuable; they belonged to the State and we were both of us tax-payers. This thing must be stopped at once.

We rowed back to the dam and spent three hours tearing a hole three feet wide through the middle of it. We watched the water run out through the break and then returned to camp.

The next morning we found the dam had been repaired during the night and the water was flowing over its top as usual. Two guests arrived at our camp that morning. They were interested in the story of the dam and spent all of the afternoon in making another opening to let the water out; but again the beavers had the dam repaired before the following morning. The Doctor had by now settled in his camp at the western end of the pond. He came across with his two husky boys and they broke a hole through the dam for the third time; and the third time the beavers repaired the breach during the night.

Bige Tearing Out the Dam

Bige's fighting blood was now thoroughly "het up" and he said "I'll fix them pesky beavers." A lot of men were at work building a "tote road" for a lumber camp over the other side of the mountain about three miles from our camp. Bige went over to call on them, and he came back with four sticks of dynamite and some fuse. These we connected and placed on top of the dam. We covered the dynamite with mud, lighted the fuse, jumped into our boat and rowed as fast as possible down toward the pond. When a hundred yards away, the explosion occurred. With a terrific roar that beaver dam was shot toward the sky and toward every point of the compass, and the water above the dam came rushing through a gap twenty feet wide. A later examination proved, that the dam had been torn out clear to the bottom of the river. Our hand-made breaks had extended only to the surface of the water below the dam.

That night a hurry up wireless call went out, and before morning twenty-three beavers were at work rebuilding the dam, with the Chief Engineer in command. We figured that delegations must have come from a colony two miles up the river, probably some from Mud Pond, others from Pine Brook and Raquette River. Certainly, there were not, living on our pond, as many beavers as we saw at work that night. By the next morning the dam had been rebuilt to the water level, and the second morning it was completely restored with water flowing over the top. A curious fact we noted, was, that while both banks of the river were strewn with fragments of the old dam, not a single piece of this tainted and dangerous material was used. New trees and bushes were cut and carried greater distances for the rebuilding.

At this stage of the war, Bige and I surrendered. We were hopelessly outnumbered and outclassed by the beavers. They worked while we were asleep. We now got busy and cut out a new trail around the swamp and the flooded area to connect with the old trail. This makes the walk fully a half mile longer than before the dam was built.

The Chief Engineer had lived at Cherry Pond ten years. He had brought out a new family of from four to seven individuals every spring. All of these had been housed and fed for two or three years, when they were old enough to emigrate and set up in business and housekeeping on their own. During these ten years a large quantity of bark had been consumed and poplar, the favorite food of beaver, had practically all been cut off. Along the shores and on the islands no more was to be found. It was, therefore, necessary to seek new sources of food supply.

Beyond the swamp, to the northeast of the river mouth, there was a grove of poplar trees, covering several acres. It was nearly a half mile to this grove, but not too far for the courage of our Chief, who now set his gang of youngsters at work digging a canal. This canal had an average width of three feet and it was two and a half feet deep. It was made quite crooked through the swamp, winding around and between clumps of alders and larger trees. Smaller trees were dug up and roots which crossed the path of the canal were cut off as clean as if chopped with an axe.

Water in the canal through the swamp maintained practically the level of the pond. There was a gradual rise of ground beyond the swamp and here a series of dams or locks were built. Each dam raised the level of water from two to three feet. There were thirteen of these levels varying in length from fifty, to two hundred and fifty feet. Water from a spring brook was diverted into the canal and flowed over each dam. The beavers towed their lumber through this canal and dragged it over the several dams, each of which seemed to be especially constructed to facilitate this operation. The length of this canal we estimated to be twenty-five hundred feet.

Beavers appear to prefer the bark of smaller trees, but they do not hesitate to cut down a large one when necessary. In such case they carry away the branches only. A poplar tree eighteen inches in diameter was cut on the shore of our pond and felled into the water. The branches that remained above the surface were cut off and carried to the storage pile. Those that were under water were left and were